Media should afford traditional healers more respect
They operate behind closed doors yet at times are the pillars of many African communities across South Africa. Even though traditional healers have had to bear the stereotypical and often comical “bone throwing” image portrayed by the media, they have long formed an integral part of many an African home.
Our very own Leon Schuster capitalised on the very same stereotype surrounding traditional healing today in the 2003 movie Mr. Bones, for example, about a white sangoma who causes comic mayhem.
Barry Ronge wrote in a 2004 Sunday Times article:
“…the film had something to offend everybody. That’s probably why it was so successful. Its R30-million box-office take outstripped the South African earnings of major Hollywood films at the time.”
Profits are thus the order of the day, and traditional healers’ dignity is compromised, not forgetting the long-lasting consequences that this will have on how this group of individuals will be perceived by the rest of society for years to come.
Nonetheless, traditional healers have kept face and mobilised amidst the growing threat of HIV/AIDS over the past few years, seeking recognition as contributing members of society in the fight against the disease.
For example, traditional healers hold important indigenous knowledge about the healing power of plants. This is something the rest of the world is slowly realising. A Sunday Times article last month, read:
“A MULTIMILLION-rand trans-Atlantic research venture involving scientists and sangomas has been set up to test the healing powers of indigenous South African plants.”
A South African Press Association ( SAPA) article last year paraphrased the Democratic Alliance’s Ryan Coetzee, supporting the passing of the Traditional Health Practitioners’ Bill in the national assembly:
“South Africa was not alone in recognising traditional medicine had a value long neglected by formal health systems.
The World Health Organisation’s strategy on alternative medicine advocated the integration of western and traditional medicines, he said.”
The Traditional Practitioners’ Act was passed into law last year, and the Government Gazette published the purposes and applications of the Act in February 2005:
The purpose of this Act is to-
(a) establish the Interim Traditional Health Practitioners Council of South Africa;
(17) (sic) provide for the registration, training and practices of traditional health
(c) serve and protect the interests of members of the public who use the services of practitioners in the Republic; and of traditional health practitioners.
According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002 - 2005, up to 80% of people in Africa make use of traditional medicine. (See Section 9 of the Journ-AIDS Treatment Factsheet for more information on this and other issues relating to traditional healers.)
The WHO even encourages the use of alternative medicine, so why have traditional healers not received the respect they deserve from the media?
Even the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) hasn’t warmed up to alternative African healing as might be expected.
SAPA reported a protest of 500 traditional healers against the TAC in Cape Town in November last year:
“The protesters, who also are TAC members, have threatened to quit the organisation for advocating so-called Western medicine at the expense of traditional medicine.”
In response, the TAC’s spokesperson, Siphokazi Mthathi, said the organisation “promotes anything that is evidence-based”.
“Mthathi said: ‘They can’t ask us to blindly promote anything where there is no evidence.’
Asked if the TAC had ever promoted any traditional medicine, she said: ‘I would not say we have…’
Mthathi urged traditional healers to organise themselves, and said the TAC was committed to working with them.”
The fact that organisations like the TAC don’t go out of their way to recognise the work of traditional healers may be a result of the destructive stereotypes that have evolved around the practise of traditional medicine and that are perpetuated by the media. Many people even confuse the terms, “sangoma” and “inyanga” to mean the same thing, which they don’t. (In general, sangomas deal more with the spiritual and ancestral realm, while inyangas focus more on prescribing herbs and medicinal plants. Their relationship is something akin to a psychologist versus a surgeon.)
An IRIN PlusNews article published on November 10 2005 highlights some of the advantages that have resulted from the joint partnering of traditional healers in Tanzania and medical professionals.
“This fusion of the traditional and modern is taking place in Tanga, a northeastern region on the Tanzanian coast, where the Tanga AIDS Working Group is combining modern voluntary counselling and testing methods with the knowledge of local healers in treating opportunistic infections associated with HIV/AIDS.”
If Tanzanians can make the best of what they have by working collaboratively with traditional healers, and the media not only acknowledges their efforts but also supports them, then South Africa have a few more lessons to learn from the rest of the continent.
It is vital that the media treat traditional healers with the same dignity and respect they afford Western doctors. Who knows, there may just be a cure for HIV/AIDS amidst their knowledge. – Lunga Madlala